Growing Family

This Post May Bore You to Tears

Before moving to Sydney, I felt very comfortable doing my life with two kids. I knew how to shop for necessities and also how to get time for myself. I knew how to shop with kids in tow and how to avoid taking them with me. After the initial transition to two, I felt totally confident with getting out and living with them.

Since moving here I feel completely disabled. Even after seven months here, I still don't feel at all comfortable with trying to run errands or do shopping with my kids. Add the fact that mentally, I am already envisioning a baby in tow with every effort, and I just stay home!

To give you the low-down of my home-bound life (I know you want it!), there are a couple significant differences that I just haven't discovered how to overcome. To begin, Australia is much like Europe in its approach to consumerism. Shops close around 5 or 6 p.m. with the exception of Thursday, which is "shopping day". On Thursday, shops stay open until about 9 p.m. So, unless I go alone on a Thursday night, or on the weekend, all shopping must happen with children in tow. The weekend is sacred family time for us that we try not to waste with things like errands.

Another thing that makes shopping difficult for me is parking. There are very few American style parking lots here where you simply have to coral your children from their car seats to the carts in the store (or as I did, back in the States, park next to a cart return bay with carts in it, plop them in and go). Here, the most convenient way to shop is to go to a shopping center. This would be like an American mall, except the grocery store is there as well, along with a butcher, florist, etc.

I have not yet been to a shopping center that didn't have a car park. So, say you need to run to Target, stop in the dollar store, and do your grocery shopping, "conveniently" all in the shopping center. You park in the car park, walk a significant distance to the entrance of the mall, and begin your errands. But if you're trekking through the mall and have a preschooler and a toddler (let's exclude the baby for a moment), you will want a stroller, right? And a stroller is a good thing...until you get to the grocery store. What do you do with your stroller full of Target purchases when you get to the grocery store and need a cart? And even if you can park the stroller and its contents somewhere, how do you get stroller/purchases, a cart full of groceries, and two exhausted children (and a mom about to melt down herself from the stress!) back through the mall, down the elevator/escalator, out into the car park and into the car?

Have I mentioned that the grocery carts (trolleys) have 4 wheels that move in all directions? Heavy laden, they are very difficult to push and you have to be careful not to twist your knees trying to get them going in the right direction.

So, why am I telling you the minutia of my shopping frustrations? Because I haven't started my Christmas shopping yet! Due to budgetary limitations, all of Christmas is coming out of December's budget so I can't start shopping until December 1st. I have to get gifts mailed to Holland and the States by next week if they'll make it in time.

I lie in bed trying to come up with mastermind plans that will allow me to accomplish everything I need to do with maximum efficiency and minimum drama. Think as I may, I just don't know how to do it. Factor in the lingering vomiting and the occasional HORRIBLE sick day, and the constant eating, I really don't know. If I haven't been able to accomplish grocery shopping with the kids yet, how will I ever do Christmas shopping with kids+nausea?

So, boring, boring, boring. At least I think it must be...but you all responded with such interest to my laundry challenges that I begin to wonder what excites you on this blog. :)

PS-I already know what you all are going to say - shop online! Well, I sometimes do that for groceries even though it is expensive. However, Australia is way behind in the whole online-store concept. Some stores have a webpage where you can look at an online version of their current catalog (think Sears catalog), but you can't actually purchase anything online...that would be too easy. And I've thought about ordering all the Stateside gifts online at U.S. stores...but that seems so impersonal. We are hand-made/heart-felt gift people in my family, not Amazon gift card people. So, yea...ideas?

Twinkle, Twinkle, Jacaranda

The Jacarandas are blooming all over Sydney. There are several across the street in the front of our house, and several more in neighboring backyards. Sydneysiders sometimes complain that Jacarandas put on a spectacular spring show but have no sustained beauty across the other seasons.

I have not found the seasonal changes to be as visible here as I am used to back in Nashville. However, the colorful seasonal foliage is really colorful. The Jacarandas are almost absurd in their saturation of color. They are not the blushing bits of color like dogwoods or redbuds. They are huge, dominating, blasts of shocking violet. In my backyard, a Jacaranda in my neighbor's yard leans branches over into mine. The carpet of purple flowers that gather underneath make it look like a mirror reflection of the tree above.

I have spent a lot of time saddened by the prospect of a warm Christmas, and also clouded by sickness that has made a festive Christmas seem like an impossible task to accomplish. Then, today, for the first time, my breath caught as I considered my first Christmas in years away from my immediate and extended family and our traditions. The thought is so daunting I don't quite know how to process it.

Tonight, as I was standing in my bedroom, looking across the street at my neighbor's Jacaranda, something began to twinkle out in the dusk. There, behind the Jacaranda, my neighbor and a boy were working at decorating another tree in the yard with white Christmas lights. The white sparkle shining through the purple mist in the gathering darkness took my breath away. Tears gathered as I realized, right outside my window will be an enchanting display of my beloved holiday, superimposed with this strange, foreign springtime.

Hmmmm

My posts are waayyyyyyyyyyy too long, aren't they?

Give to Ceasar What is Ceasar's

I am processing a lot of things these days. Normally I would write here to help me process, but while I am very honest here about adoption and parenting, these current topics are a bit too personal to explore in public. I have been using this blog for so long as my one-stop-shop for exploration, confession, and mucking my thoughts about, that not having it be an appropriate place to process leaves me feeling a bit displaced. I might have to dust off the paper journal and pick up a favorite pen.

So, in general summary, we are pretty settled on having this baby by c-section. I had a wonderful, natural birth experience with The Sprout that was everything I wanted it to be: empowering, revelatory, deepening, spiritual, and...well, words fail, really. Also in my birth experience with her, some complications developed that resulted in a lot of trauma and a long and painful recovery that was both physically and emotionally difficult. I didn't write about it much, as it was so personal, but it was a very difficult time.

To make a long story go longer, I ended up with an OB here, rather than a midwife, even though a midwife would be more my style. The OB has emphasized his strong opinion that the safest way for me to have this baby is via c-section. My General Practitioner is in full agreement. Wanting to have the opinions from "both sides", I consulted a home-birth midwife with 30 years experience. Her council was that I could try for another natural birth and with months of preparation and the prospect of some intervention, she thought we could minimize the complications that arose last time.

So, after mulling it over for several weeks, and talking to God about it, I think having a c-section is the best choice for me, and our family, in these circumstances. I am not comfortable with the idea of surgery, never having spent any real time sick or in hospital. But, I'm processing it. Believe me, I've only given you the surface skimmings, though it may not seem like it.

The other thing I'm processing but not discussing (hehe), is the role of our faith in this move, and what we expect to happen here. I realized this week that it's like we were following the pillar of fire/cloud in the dessert, and then it disappeared. Sometimes there's nothing like asking "why are we here?" to start to remember.

In other pregnancy news, I'm starting to remember things about pregnancy that I'd forgotten. Last week I was just a little fat. This week, I am surely pregnant. I "popped out", as they say. It's little things that I forgot, like the way sometimes you bend over and your muscles catch there and when you stand up, they don't release! Then you're kind of stuck half bent over, trying to get the muscles to un-glitch. So graceful.

Oh, and the shifting of the center of gravity. I've nearly toppled over a couple times this week because I leaned, and didn't expect the extra pull of this apple-sized baby to be so strong. There have been a couple times where I really felt movement, though technically, I shouldn't yet. It wasn't kicking or anything, just this feeling of my uterus, occupied. And the eating! Today was a switch from eating to keep from throwing up, to eating like a ravenous little scavenger. Things I wouldn't have dared two days ago, I was scarfing down, fearfully, but as one compelled. The fresh grape tomatoes and young cucumbers from my garden were particularly satisfying, as was the fresh squeezed orange juice the Captain made. (Did I fail to mention the mac'n'cheese, brownies and ice cream, and heavily salted nuts? Oops.)

Lastly, I feel like I've surrendered my voice for adoption here lately. I am not in the process of adopting, nor do I live in the States where my opinions on adoption reform are relevant. Sometimes I forget that as an adoptive mother, I have a permanent stake in the world of adoption, even if I am not currently engaged in it. I've read two pieces lately that really moved my heart and reminded me of what I am passionate about in adoption. The conversation about adoptive parent's "claiming" a baby in a pre-birth match, over at Dawn's, and Heather's discussions of creating inventive ways to make sure adoptive parents are meeting their own ethical standards when adopting in states that have Termination of Parental Rights and Revocation Period time-frames that they don't feel are adequate and ethical.

Reading these two discussions has been intensely engaging and I am reminded of how much I care, and how interested I am in being involved in adoption in America, and the world. I think I had to shelf that for awhile, after finding out we can't adopt right now. But I think I might rejoin the conversation soon.

So there you have it: there are the visible tips of the icebergs. Now I'll have to go plumb the rest of the depths on my own.

Facebook and Diamonds

After years of successful boycotting, I joined Facebook. Blogs, both the reading and writing of them, have suddenly faded to the background.

Suddenly I am catching up with people from junior high. People from stages of life several removed, with no tracks connecting them to my present life.

Driving on the street I see people from the past. Old friends and crushes from 15 years ago, just as they were then. I've been dreaming about those old days.

I am fortunate to be sleeping soundly enough to dream as The Captain has finished his two weeks of night shift work. Having his steady presence in the bed next to me has brought back the deep peaceful sleep that I've only known since sharing his bed. I used to sleep all curled up, protective, vulnerable, wincing. Now I sleep on my back, arms flung overhead, safe and sound. It's amazing how the right person in your life can make everything...free.

I had some good days this week. And even today, with two rounds of violent illness, I recovered from each more quickly. I was back upright in a shorter amount of time. Upright is good.

So I'm missing friends far away. Friends who are lonely. Friends who need hugs. Friends who need a cup of tea and a good talk. It's hard to not have my friends here for me, but also hard to not be there for them.

I'm spending a lot of time dreaming about things I hope for. Lately I sound like those parents I never wanted to turn into: the ones who talk about how long it's been since they had a date, how they'd love a vacation without the kids, how their kids get up too early in the morning. But really, if you don't have any balance in your life, being a stay-at-home mom can become really claustrophobic. At least it is for me at the moment. If you never have time apart from your kids, absence can't make the heart grow fonder. With the last months of being sick, I haven't had hardly any time away from the kids, let alone out of the house.

So all the things I'm dreaming about are completely self-indulgent. For one thing, I'm dreaming about a huge diamond ring. Let me explain: when we got married I was 19 and pretty granola. I considered things like big diamonds to be frivolous and wasteful. Not to mention we didn't really have any money, and diamond engagement rings aren't part of Dutch marriage traditions. I've wanted a big ring for years. Not so granola now! I know exactly what I want, and every few months I go through seasons thinking about it.

I'm also thinking about buying myself a dog. I SO MISS my old dog, Phoebe, who died about two and a half years ago. I have spent a lot of time thinking about getting a family dog "for the kids" and have been researching breeds. Last week I had a huge cry-a-thon thinking about my old dog. I probably cried for an hour, unable to stop. I've hardly cried since she died (I did cry a lot then), and suddenly, I just missed her so much. I could see her and all the sweet mannerisms she had. I realized that I don't want a family dog. I want a dog that I will share with the family, but I want another dog that is mine. Another weimeraner, practical or not. So I'm dreaming about that.

Lastly, today I decided that I want to go on a weekend lover's holiday to Brisbane with The Captain. I want to stay in a nice hotel, eat breakfast in bed, and go to the theme park. Yes, I have decided that I want to go ride rides, even though I've never been "into that". We'll have to wait until post baby to go, probably significantly post-baby!

I think the fact that I'm dreaming of pleasant things is a good sign that I'm getting better. I haven't been depressed this week. I even ate hash browns today.

I have never felt so run down, so unattractive, so personally neglected, and in need of pampering as I have these last few months. My skin looks bad, my hair is flat with no shine, and my nails are a mess. Even after my nightly ten hours of sleep my eyes have rings under them. It seems perfectly reasonable to me that all I can dream about is luxury, spas, diamonds, house help, and no kids.

You are All Fabulous

I can't say enough how heartening it was to receive all of your comments, emails, and chats in response to my last post. I am really overwhelmed by two things: how sincere friendship can reach across the ocean to provide what's needed, and how friends I have made online and have never met in real life can be so vital in raising my spirits! I cry (in a good way), each time I read the things you all wrote to encourage me. Thank you!

I hope I can consider Sunday (when I wrote that) to be a turning point in this pregnancy. I had 48 wonderful hours without vomiting! And Monday, my friend with the three kids called to ask if she could leave two with me while she took her son to preschool orientation. Since I was having a "good" morning and The Captain was home, I felt up to it. When she came to collect them, she and I ended up spending over an hour liesurly chatting on the couch while The Captain kept watch over the kids and then fed them all lunch. So here, unexpectedly, I got time to sit back and just talk to her, neither of us pre-occupied by the kiddos. That was so wonderful.

Have I mentioned that my hubby should get a big fat reward for all he's done these last months? Really, I might cut out a cardboard star and cover it with tin foil and present it to him on bended knee. When he was working normal hours, he got up with the kids and got them dressed and fed and watching Curious George before leaving for work. Then, upon arriving home, he'd make dinner, and do the whole bedtime routine, only to do the dinner clean-up and house clean-up after they went to sleep. Oh, and the grocery shopping, making my snacks, patting my back, and maintaining compassion for me as I roll into day after day of misery. Now that he's working nights he's sleeping a couple hours in the day and doing even more with the kids. Oh, and did I mention he just took a contract job to help offset the additional expenses we have showing up? Seriously, this man works like a mule, never complains, and is so patient. Don't any of you try to steal him away!

I managed to fulfill my obligation to take morning tea to playgroup today, and after they saw my thin and green face, they promptly relieved me of any further duties this term. Whew.

Other fun news, also this week I found out one of my girlfriends here is pregnant too! Three weeks ahead of me. So I have a pregnant buddy! That's always fun.

I'm in the throws of making some big decisions about this birth, given the complications I had with The Sprout, and I'll write more about that soon.

Today I received my first baby thing in the mail. Some Dutch friends sent us a package for Sinterklaas and there was a little onesie inside! I napped with it wrapped around my neck. I need to start connecting with the BABY, and not just the sickness.

To that end, I dragged myself through the heat to the storage shed and got out the two tupperware bins I brought that had "baby stuff". It turns out, other than a breast pump, a mobile, and a baby food grinder, I don't really have anything. I have some bigger size clothes, but only about a dozen newborn things and most of them are distinctly girl...so they may or may not apply. It's good and bad news I guess. I love to shop, but I don't have a lot of money to do so, nor to I expect any to be falling from the sky, what with Christmas SIX WEEKS away! At least I figured out now that I don't have anything, so every time someone asks me if I need anything, I can just say YES!

So that's the news on the baby front. I just wanted to say thank you so much, for lifting me up when I was so low. I'm not through the dark yet, but I did see a break in the clouds. Love to you all.

Now that the cat is out of the bag re: the baby, I feel like my facade of fine has completely fallen down. Up until now I've been putting on a brave face and talking about the good things going on with people when I see them, but avoiding them most of the time.

All I want to do is stay in bed, covers over the head preferable. It is one of those seasons where we ride in the car and my husband sends me sidelong kind glances as tears run down my cheeks and I stare, silent, out into the sunshine. Then again in church, he's holding both of our children, and looking over at me, trying to brush away the tears that will just keep rolling.

Today his greatest kindness was that he talked to me about what it might mean if I don't want to stay in Sydney. Or more specifically, if I want to go back to Nashville.

This "morning sickness", or Hyperemesis gravidarum as is recorded in the referral the General Practitioner sent with me to the OB, has just messed up my whole life. As if moving across the world wasn't challenging enough, it's like having a stomach flu for months.

I feel weak and fragile and...ridiculous. I can't pull myself together. I'm not the version of me that I like. But after sweating and heaving, nearly collapsing from the violence of the sickness, I am a sniveling, crying, pitiful person. I don't remember feeling this constantly low with The Sprout. I was sick with her, but I wasn't this demoralized. I wasn't this depressed.

In that moment, after being sick, again, when I'm just crying in the bathroom, I don't know how to go on. And, that moment comes often enough that I can't get enough space from it to feel strong. And on days when I'm not actually sick, my stomach quakes and jumps and nothing feels safe.

No, bed and the covers firmly over me are my best bet right now.

While I lie there I think of things from "home", and places I think I could live where The Captain might also be able to live. Places that are within driving distance from home. I think of fall-time and Christmas six weeks away, and I cry some more.

Hopefully I'll only have one of these blog posts where I am just an all-out sniveling mess. It's just so damn lonely. I don't have any friends here that are close enough to sit with and cry. They're the "fix-it" kind of friends who have been just wonderful with helping me through the logistics of this sickness. And well, there is one friend who would listen, if it wasn't for her three children keeping her busy.

So I read books and I watch movies and listen to music, and I cry. And I try to keep my kids dressed and fed and happy. And I thank my lucky stars that The Captain was home this weekend to share the bed with me, as he's been working nights for a week and that's been hard on us all.

So...I'm interested to re-discover myself after this passes as right now everything is just so hard and painful. I am typically a happy, balanced, optimistic person, so this experience is shaking my confidence in who I am and my ability to cope with challenges.

Thanks for reading. 

Notes from November 5th

• So in the end, I didn't vote. When I was still and quiet, I couldn't find peace either way. Initially I had it, but then it left. So I waited. I waited, and it didn't come back.
• So it looks like Barack Obama won. I'm so excited. Apprehensive. Excited.
• Yesterday was my daughter's 2nd birthday.
• She is the spiciest little treat I've ever seen. You love her while she drives you crazy. You grin while you carry her to time-out, again.
• I am 12 weeks pregnant with our third child. I have spent the last six weeks sick and depressed. I've tried to maintain a sense of humor, but having vomit come out of your nose makes that a little difficult. I think I'm as dehydrated from crying as I am from being sick. It's been a really dark six weeks.
• Today I went to the OB and saw the baby on the ultrasound. (S)he was bouncing and kicking wildly, formed, identifiable head, arms, hands and feet, waving, kicking. Seeing the baby, I felt such pure joy. It was an incredible moment. Up until then, pregnant=sick. Now it really means a baby.
• There is so much to anticipate for my country, for my family, for my children. As I lie, exhausted and ill on the couch, I watch my happy children and my faithful husband. There's a lot to be thankful for.

Crushed

Last night the Captain was working late and I was eating dinner with Small Sun and The Sprout. Over his plate of noodles and corn, Small Sun looked up and said "I want to have skin like you and Daddy and Sprout."

I think my heart stopped beating.

I tried to remember everything I've read and I calmly replied "why is that honey?"

Small Sun - "I want to be the same like you and Daddy and Sprout."

Me - "Ah, I see. Well do you know? I am so happy that you are brown because I love your brown skin and I think it is beautiful! God makes each of us a little bit different and I love that He made you with brown skin."

Small Sun - "I don't want to be brown. I don't like brown."

Really, no heartbeat, I'm flatlining here.

Me- "I'm sorry you feel that way sweetheart. I love brown. What about our friends who are brown? (list names...) We love them and they are beautiful brown like you are."

Small Sun latches onto my mention of J, my sister's boyfriend, and recounts the games they play together. But he ends with, "I want to have light skin like you and Daddy and Sprouty."

Phone rings, pot boils over, something happens to interrupt our conversation.

Later, I am reading a blog and I show him pictures of the family where the parents are white, the twins are black, and there is a baby sister who is white as well. I tried to show him that there are other families like ours where the mommy and pappa have light skin, and there are boys with brown skin. He was unmoved.

I know this shouldn't be about me, but I just felt so devastated. So upset that my child is suffering because of circumstances that won't change. Hurting that he is feeling isolated in our family. Hurting because we hope to adopt transracially again, but I can't make that happen, and for now, this is the reality of our family. Hurt that he's hurt and that I can't fix it.

And after the hurting, there is the wondering how I can be doing this better? How I can work harder, and try more to provide what he needs. I think when this happens, even though it is textbook-common, it can just be so painful that your head empties of all practical thought and you can't see the way forward. At least, that's how I feel. So I'd love to hear suggestions, even those that may seem obvious, as I regroup to go forward.